Bhajans, games keep devotees awake
The festival of fasting and night-long vigil (Jagharne), 'Mahashivarathri' was celebrated on Friday with fervour in the City.
Unlike other festivals, Mahashivarathri calls for a "self-cleansing act" by fasting and staying awake the whole night. Many Shiva temples in the City saw huge crowds by the evening for the darshana of Lord Shiva. Temples also conducted day and night-long pooja with abhisheka and arathi.
The Shiv Mandir on Old Airport Road gathered maximum crowd in the City with more than three lakh floating crowd visiting the temple through the day till the next morning. Temple authorities said the trustee of the mandir normally conducts midnight programmes to keep the devotees awake till morning. "We normally conduct bhajans, anthakshari, thambola and other games, all related to Lord Shiva, played throughout night," said the authorities. Around 1,000 devotees stay at the temple till 4 am.
Sharana Sangama, a cultural outfit in Jayanagar organised programme like Dollu Kunitha, Veeraghase, performance by Raghu Dixit for the Jagare event on the occasion of Mahashivarathri. The Sangama convenor Mallikarjuna said, special decoration was made for the day. Many temples in the City had arranged bhajans and cultural activities throughout night to mark the occasion.
